The ‘Red Sea Riviera’ has 5-star resorts cheaper than a Heathrow hotel — but it faces a threat

‘Do you come from here?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I come from my mother’s stomach.’. Still on the steps of the small provincial airport, I got my first taste of Egyptian humour from Anwar, a taxi driver with an uproarious laugh and a wicked grin. It will not be the last time I hear this joke in Egypt. I was in Hurghada, the coastal capital of the ‘Red Sea Riviera’. What was still a tiny fishing village less than 100 years ago has morphed into a sprawling holiday hotspot, best known for affordable ‘fly and flop’ package deals and year-round sunshine. The weather is good, the diving is better and the people who live here are some of the warmest I’ve met.

But Hurghada’s rapid expansion poses a threat. Stretches of sand are filled with unfinished apartment complexes, all vying to cater for what the Egyptian government hopes will be a record influx of winter sunseekers. With stunning coral reefs and ocean that shimmers in fifty shades of blue, this region is beautiful — it just needs to protect what makes it so special. Egypt has long been fertile ground for tour operators.

Despite a troubled past marred by terror attacks, tourist boat fires and deadly shark attacks, the North African country remains a popular choice for British sunseekers. Its relatively low cost of living allows travel agencies like Tui and EasyJet to offer the kind of value they never could in Europe. The Red Sea also has the added draw-card of some of the world’s best reefs. Home to shipwrecks and rich marine life including tiger sharks, year after year thousands of divers travel here to plunge beneath the waves.

It sounds high-end, but resorts here have been described as ‘five-star luxury at three-star prices’. In recent years, an EasyJet campaign went viral after it promoted a deal promising a month in an upscale Hurghada hotel for less than the average monthly UK heating bill. When I visited in January, one night in a spacious suite at the five-star Grand Hotel Oberoi Sahl Hasheesh – recently voted one of the top 25 hotels in the world – cost less than a night at a Heathrow Airport hotel. Like-for-like Sundays were £157 at the Oberoi, and £162 at the Sofitel London Heathrow.

Golden beaches and bargain prices — it’s a tempting escape, no matter how you look at it. However, like several destinations around the world, the challenges of overtourism are mounting. Our Uber driver Ahmed, a 20-year-old with a Colgate smile, hints at how stifling the tourist season can be as he takes us to Al Mina mosque and El Dahar, the old town where locals live. ‘This is a good time, the best time to be here. You are lucky, in summer there are too many people,’ he says.

‘It’s hard to breathe.’. Egypt welcomed 15.7 million foreign visitors in 2024, a record-breaking figure that surpassed the pre-pandemic peak of 14.7 million in 2010. Last year, Tui added Egypt’s Nile region to its programme of tours for winter 2025, a sign that demand is only set to rise. And it’s clear that developers in Hurghada are racing to accommodate it. Business hubs that proclaim to be ‘your new working oasis’ are under construction on the coastal road, sprawling breeze block structures that rise cheek by jowl from desert sand.

Neon hotels with Hollywood-inspired names dwarf the horizon; there’s the Aladdin, the Ali Baba, and not one, but four variations of Titanic: Titanic Royal, Titanic Beach, Titanic Palace and Titanic Resort. Medical spas are also springing up; we count three on the coast road alone, and I wonder how long it will take Egypt to rival Turkey as a cheap bum lift and Botox destination. Like so many places, Hurghada now faces a conundrum.

Build and they will come, or destroy every reason to come by building too much, too soon?. While all-inclusive deals at well-known chain hotels are an easy way to attract western tourists, they also provide little reason to explore the country outside resort walls. And although it may sound harmless – even desirable –  to be able to order Italian cuisine in Africa, it can have a significant impact on local surroundings.

As Metro’s Kimberley Bond wrote in 2023, local produce is overlooked for foreign imports, and small shops don’t benefit from the spending power of holidaymakers. Meanwhile, locals are paid poor wages to serve huge corporations. ‘Tourism could bring huge amounts of money to local areas, but so often, travel is a one-way conversation,’ notes Bruce Poon Tip, founder of the G Adventures travel company.

‘The locals receive no custom or benefit of having holidaymakers there. ‘Money is often siphoned off to huge corporations based abroad.’. I leave Hurghada with mixed emotions. On one hand, this is a place of spectacular natural beauty, with diving that rivals the Pacific and a coastal desert of lunar-like mountains. The people are wonderful; they are charming, funny, and always eager to help. On the other, it feels inevitable that this region will lose some of its spark to the scourge of rapid development.